Arsenal crushed 10-man Tottenham Hotspur at Saturday’s exciting North London Derby in Emirates Stadium. The game featured 7 goals, 5 for Arsenal and 2 for the Spurs, and a red card, as both squads fought for a desperately needed win. Previously losing to Manchester City, this match extended Tottenham’s losing streak to 4 as hopes for the Premier League title are slowly slipping away from them. On the other hand, Arsenal looks to be improving as the year progresses, recovering from a dismal start and rising slowly to the top.
Emmanuel Adebayor, who was previously employed by Arsenal and now plays for the Spurs, gave Tottenham the lead just 10 minutes after the whistle. Adebayor beat goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny to the ball and easily slotted it in to put Tottenham up 1-0. But the nightmare began 8 minutes later, when Adebayor was show a red card and taken off the pitch after a reckless foul on Cazorla. With a man up, Arsenal produced attack after attack, and they finally erased the goal deficit by making it 1-1 within 6 minutes of the booking.
Mertesacker managed to catch Wolcott’s right-wing cross with an unstoppable header that sailed past goalkeeper Hugo Lloris and into the top right corner. But it was Lukas Podolski who finally put Arsenal up 3 minutes before the end of the 1st half. Wilshere and Arteta made a few exchanges as they progressed toward they goal and set up the German International perfectly, whose shot flew into the goal despite a slight deflection from Gallas. But Tottenham somehow conceded yet another goal before half time. On the 45th minute, Giroud handled a low cross from Cazorla very well and claimed another for Arsenal despite the large number of defenders in the box. When the whistle was finally blown, Tottenham, down 3-1, marched off to their lockers knowing they were in trouble.
The hour mark saw Cazorla score a 4th for the Gunners. Podolski ran up the left wing and made a nice assist that Cazorla put right by the goalkeeper and into the bottom right corner. But the numerical disadvantage did not stop Tottenham from scoring a second. Gareth Bale, who used Arsenal’s poor defense in his favor, shot the ball past multiple defenders and into the bottom left corner of the net, making it 4-2. On the 90th minute, Walcott added icing to the cake by exploiting Tottenham’s weak defenses and scoring another for Arsenal, ending the game with the score of 5-2.
The North London Derby puts Arsenal ahead of Tottenham, with West Ham the only team separating them. In 6th place, the Gunners currently have 19 points from their 5 wins and 4 losses. Tottenham, which looked to be doing fairly good at the beginning of the season, has dropped to 8th place following today’s match. With a 5-2-5 record, the Spurs currently harbor 17 points, just 2 short of Arsenal. Manchester City currently leads the Premier League with 28 points, followed by Manchester United, Chelsea, West Bromwich Albion, and Everton.